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Need for transgender health services has significantly increased in New Zealand, but public health service provision has lagged behind demand. Provision of transgender healthcare is further complicated by a lack of clarity around which gender-affirming healthcare services are provided by each District Health Board, and the process for accessing these services.AimsTo establish which gender-affirming healthcare services are available in each of New Zealand’s 20 districts and what process each District Health Board follows for providing these services.MethodsData were gathered using Official Information Act 1982 requests to each of the 20 District Health Boards. Two independent coders coded each response for availability of, and process for accessing, each service. Following this, interpretations of each response were returned to a District Health Board representative for an opportunity to confirm or update their response. ResultsOverall, responses showed notable inconsistency between District Health Boards regarding which services were available and funded. Four District Health Boards reported that they did not provide specific funding for any of the gender-affirming healthcare services listed. Responses to questions about the process of accessing gender-affirming healthcare produced similarly mixed results. ConclusionsThere is a need for consistency in gender-affirming healthcare provision across District Health Boards, and for the creation of clear health pathways and criteria for care.

This article argues that a performance of transgender is integral to the reproduction of New Zealand’s ‘national identity’. It suggests that because mediated ‘New Zealandness’ relies simultaneously on its exclusive self-conception as masculinity, and a requisite female adjunct to cast the resultant homosociality in heterosexual terms, New Zealand ‘femaleness’ is primarily recognizable as a misperformed masculinity. The gender binary that functions in the service of national identity is not male/female but masculinity as the gendered, and the transgendered, body. In order to demonstrate this, this article uses Judith Butler’s account of melancholic heterosexuality to examine the ‘Southern Man’ campaign devised to market Speight’s beer.

The present study replicates previous findings that abstract problem-solving ability is not related to QoL and supports the hypothesis that real-world or everyday problem-solving ability is associated with QoL in older people.

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